A song about "things not living up to expectations".
Say hello to night pilot - née Hannah Brewer - the Wellington based singer and producer who is on the verge of releasing her debut EP. Today we're sharing Hotel, the single second from the project and one which Hannah tells us is '60s-inspired and good to listen to whilst driving.
To celebrate the release, we shot her a few quick questions to find out more.
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You’re based in Wellington, but recorded your debut EP in Auckland. What was it that brought you up North?
I’d been wanting to record these songs for a while and my friend Amelia Murray (Fazerdaze) introduced me to Mark Perkins (Merk) who is a great producer and has a cool little studio on K Road. So I took a week off work and we hibernated and made music.
Lyrically, Hotel is packed with little mundane details that generally get overlooked. What sort of feeling were you were trying to touch on with the song?
Photo: Supplied
Sometimes we romanticise things. I often think of going to stay in a hotel as being a glamorous getaway, but in reality they can be quite lonely and not very fun. I guess the underlying idea is of things not living up to expectations or being the way you want them to be. The details are from my experience (free soap!) but are tangible things that other people might be able to relate to.
Drive, your last single, relied on subtlety and restraint. In comparison, Hotel is super accessible. How did you land on such a different sound this time around?
Drive is written from a place of reflection, that quiet moment when you look back on a situation and the emotion builds up in a different way than when it did at the time. Hotel is written a bit more in the moment itself - it’s the present feeling. I’m not entirely sure how I landed on such a different sound, but I think part of it is the assurance that Hotel has - the confidence you have when you know something isn’t what you want.
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